Too much of everything

Just perfect...

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's truely a wonderful artistic work by Wong as usual!

Not necessarily style over substance, because there is a lot of "hidden" substance here. The movie contains a very thin yet appealing plot; very subtle and very bleak and pessimistic; clearly not for everyone. Of course the cinematography is amazing - outstanding use of colors and camera movements. I know it sounds paradoxical but I'll say it: romantic! This movie is everything that I like about Asian romance movies - a different approach on romance; it's sincere and touching - a great blend of extreme romance and deep loneliness. Also, the ending is the definition of pure bleakness, and the music helps a lot with the intense and sorrowful atmosphere!

This is a snore-fest from start to finish. Anyone who claims this is good must be the kind of person that stares at a blank white painting and claims it inspires them. I gave it 3/10 because 1/10 and 2/10 is reserved for truly terrible movies, and at least the acting was good in this.

Set in early 1960s Hong Kong, Wong Kai-wai's 2000 film IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE chronicles a brief affair, and one that is poignantly ambiguous.As the film opens, we see two married couples move into rented rooms in the house of an elderly matriarch (living space is at a premium in Hong Kong, and the claustrophobic sets reflect the reality). Two of these new neighbours strike up a friendship because they feel similarly neglected by their spouses. The husband of Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung), a traveling businessman, is often away for weeks at a time and probably seeing another woman. Meanwhile, newspaper reporter Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) quietly suffers his wife's betrayal as she stays out night after night with some other man.Chan and Chow begin spending time together, wondering if their actions mirror those of their unfaithful spouses: "Is this how it started?" Their exact relationship remains ambiguous, as Chan suggests that any physical intimacy would be stooping to the level of their spouses. Even if their friendship is platonic, they struggle to keep it hidden from the conservative society of the time, adding considerable suspense to the film.Tales of adultery are pretty old hat in art cinema, but the storytelling here is fresh and IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE proved a moving experience for this reviewer and his wife. Cheung and Leung play their parts with such painfully sad faces, as if the betrayal of a husband or wife is a natural disaster that can only be born quietly with dignity, never undone. It's not unbearably oppressive, however, and a little bit of comic relief is provided by Mr. Chow's coworker Ah Ping, played by Ping Lam Siu. Strikingly, Ping Lam Siu wasn't a professional actor at all, but rather a prop man, but he's a real character and I'm glad Wong Kar-Wai brought him in front of the camera.Besides the memorable acting, another strong point of this film is its exploitation of the medium. The colorful sets with 1960s period detail and Ms. Chan's changing succession of cheongsam dresses are absolutely gorgeous. Furthermore, the viewer is dazzled by cinematic slight of hand such as a rapid succession of near-identical shots in the same location, representing in an instant how these characters had been meeting over weeks or months. Shots from under a bed or behind a curtain make the audience feel like a voyeur; we are no longer innocent spectators but almost implicated in the protagonists' affair that they are desperate to keep secret. The husband of Mr. Chan is never directly shown, while the face of Mr. Chow's wife is always turned away from the camera, an effect that strengthens the viewer's identification with these protagonists and leads us to sympathize with their feelings of neglect.Wong Kai-Wai shot something like 30 times the amount of footage that ultimately made it into the finished film, and some of this cut footage can be seen on various home media releases. Knowing how the film was made will definitely elevate film editing in your eyes to the same level as the initial writing of any screenplay -- which Wong Kar-Wai doesn't even do, working intuitively without a script. Wong Kai-Wai filmed a number of directions for the story to go in (like a final meeting between the lovers, scenes of their spouses, etc.), only to cut them out, and the end result is so much stronger for it. The 98 minutes that was finally shown to the world is utterly convincing with not a minute wasted and not a single element extraneous. It is as if the director was a sculptor revealing a masterpiece out of a huge block of marble.